Special ed overhaul called 'monumental'

Louisiana’s education establishment faces a huge challenge implementing a controversial new law to make it easier for high school students to earn a high school diploma, superintendents said Thursday.

“The bottom line is it is going to be a very difficult process,” said Doris Voitier, superintendent of the St. Bernard Parish school system and president of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents.

“We just all have to recognize we are going to have significant problems with this,” Voitier said.

The issue was the dominant topic during a nearly two-hour meeting of the Superintendents’ Advisory Council, an influential panel that advises the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

BESE is set to take up the issue on Aug. 12-13.

The overhaul stems from House Bill 1015, which won approval during the 2014 legislative session.

Under current rules, most high school students with disabilities face the same standardized tests as their peers, which critics say is key reason less than a third of those students earn traditional high school diplomas.

The change allows a special education student’s advisory team to hammer out an alternative way to graduation, regardless of how the student fares on the standardized tests.

The law has set off arguments in the state’s special education community.